Plan to Cut Immigrant Benefits Rejected : Legislation: Work on crime bill stalls as senators grapple with amendments. Californians joined fight against dropping aid for illegal residents.

Debate over the Senate’s comprehensive crime bill was sidetracked Friday as lawmakers considered--and rejected--a politically appealing proposal to cut off all federal benefits for illegal immigrants.

But earlier the Senate succeeded in passing several amendments to the legislation, including one that would treat 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds as adults if they are convicted of carrying a firearm while committing murder, rape or aggravated assault.

The action came as the Senate continued work on the omnibus crime bill, which includes a $22.2-billion package approved Thursday designed to put 100,000 more police officers on the streets over the next five years, build regional prisons for violent offenders and launch a national attack on domestic violence.

Work on the overall legislation is scheduled to resume Monday. The House already has approved a smaller package of bills and the two versions of the legislation would have to be reconciled.

In offering the amendment on benefits for illegal immigrants, Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.) argued that they are a drain on government resources at a time when U.S. citizens already are being hurt by federal spending cuts.

“This is a tough piece of legislation; it will do tough things,” he acknowledged. “I’m not trying to be cruel. . . . I’m simply trying to be realistic.”

But Senate opponents from California, Florida, New York and other states with large immigrant populations argued that the amendment in effect would shift the financial burden to the states.

Even California’s Gov. Pete Wilson--whom Exon said voted for a similar amendment as a senator in 1989--objected in a letter to the Nebraska Democrat. The governor noted that California already pays $3 billion a year for services for illegal immigrants because of “a failed federal border policy.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a leading foe of the Exon plan, contended that it would require California to pay $669 million more a year for emergency medical services and other benefits for illegal immigrants and their families--benefits that now are funded by the federal government.

Aided by senators’ desires to leave town for the weekend, Feinstein and her allies threatened to stage a mini-filibuster. Exon eventually relented, modifying his amendment so that it essentially restated existing law. It was approved, 85 to 2.

As Feinstein and others emphasized in the daylong debate, current law already forbids federal payments to illegal residents for welfare benefits; food stamps; supplemental income for the aged, blind and disabled; unemployment compensation; college loans; job training; or Medicaid, except for emergency treatment.

But Exon’s proposal would have barred illegal immigrants from taking advantage of the Women, Infants and Children food program, earned income tax credits, migrant health centers, school lunch programs and veterans’ pensions.

“I call this the ‘punish-the-states’ amendment,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said of the proposal. “It seems to me the height of cruelty to say to states that are having problems because of undocumented workers that the federal government is going to close you off. . . . It is the federal government that has failed to control the borders.”

Perhaps the final blow was landed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who said the law provides that the federal government will pay for emergency medical treatment of all poor persons under Medicaid whether or not they are citizens.

“Here we are on a crime bill proposing to repeal acts of mercy,” Moynihan said, threatening to block the crime bill if necessary to prevent the Exon proposal from becoming law.

Also on Friday, the Senate approved other amendments to the legislation that would crack down on telemarketing fraud by authorizing additional funds for the FBI and Department of Justice for focusing on such crime, especially if it’s directed against people older than 55.

Another amendment adopted by voice vote would increase penalties for health care fraud, such as filing false claims for reimbursement.

The Senate voted, 75 to 19, to allow admission into evidence of previous convictions in cases involving child molestation and sex crimes.

By a 64-23 vote, the Senate also decided to treat 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds as adults if they are convicted of carrying a firearm during a murder, rape or aggravated assault. This amendment, offered by Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.), would allow judges to impose longer sentences on gun-wielding youngsters but would bar confining them with adult prisoners.

“Our juvenile justice system has failed because it allows hard-core and repeat offenders to escape tough penalties until and unless they are tried as adults,” she said. “Juvenile criminals must know we will not tolerate violence simply because they are young.”